rock you like a hurricane
by chokecherries
Summary: The living dead are actually a thing that is happening, apparently Natsu is the chosen one, Gray just wants his coffee, dammit, and Lucy is so over her life. Is there a sympathy card for Sorry the Zombies Ate Your Family? Also, do I smell romance in the air, or is that just the stench of rotting flesh?—natsu/lucy, gray/juvia, plus others
1. Chapter 1

**notes: **so guess who's writing a modern zombie au while wearing a shirt that says "be kind to zombies, they're people too." if you guessed it was me, you would be correct. guess who also didn't notice until just now? also me. **  
><strong>**disclaimer: **disclaimed**  
><strong>**dedication: **to my cousin who watches horror movies even though he's ridiculously superstitious and jumps at every little thing. to this day i'm still unsure if you're brave, or just dumb. **  
><strong>**more notes: **yes, i wrote this even though i've never seen a zombie movie in my life. _what about it. _rated g for (probable) graphic violence and gore.

.

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(_a zombie memoir, or how Natsu Dragneel realized that he is the chosen one,  
>and possibly one of the greatest zombie slayers ever.<em>)  
>.<p>

**act i**

the beginning of the end, _or_ the dishes will have to wait, there's zombies to kill

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{_all those people in the old photographs i've seen are dead_}

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—

Natsu is eating Captain Crunch and watching Saturday morning cartoons like any self-respecting high school junior when the world ends. Perhaps it's just another screw up (though not on his part) in his life, because a _Saturday, are you freaking kidding? _The only get two days between school weeks, it really couldn't have ended on a Thursday or something? He realizes that he's lazy and that's he's just procrastinating that chemistry homework, okay, his friends have told him numerous times, but this is on a whole other level.

Besides, kids these days are so invested in their phones and whatever else they have that's electronic, and he can't just let the weekend morning tradition die out. It'd be like, a disgrace to humanity or something. And _somebody _has to watch Daffy Duck epically fail at almost everything he tries. He also realizes that getting a job would be "preferable" and it might be on his list of Things to Do, but it's not exactly one of his high priorities—in fact, he thinks that his chem homework comes before that, and even then it's like number fifteen.

He's seventeen, alright, and who hires seventeen-year-old hormonal teenage guys and pays them a fair wage? That's right, nobody. Job experience would be helpful, but the only things available to him are probably either working in fast food or retail, and honestly, he'd rather makeout with Gray before doing either of those.

Anyway.

Back to the world.

Everything goes to hell on a relatively nice Saturday in October, and maybe it is a good thing that it's on a weekend, because who wants to be at school at a time like this? Like really. But the day is seemingly normal from the start—he wakes up early this morning, at nine, pours himself some sugary cereal and falls back onto the couch to watch some tv.

He's about to shovel his tenth spoonful of cereal into his mouth when he hears it.

It's a weird sound—kind of like a muted bang, but also a thud—and he just figures that Mrs. Schmooker's old Ford pickup still has that problem with the exhaust pipe. She seriously needs to get it fixed, because if he's not already awake (and he usually isn't) on Saturdays, it backfires every morning without fail at nine-thirty and rudely jars him from his blissful slumber. He gets that she's like sixty-four and she's widowed, okay, but he would be _happy _to help fix it if she just _let him. _He'd do it for free, too—no need to take it in to a shop as long as she purchased the right parts—if it meant that it wouldn't wake him up early on weekends.

So he passes it off as the stupid backfiring problem and returns to watching Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck fight over which hunting season it actually is while Elmer Fudd stands off to the side. He shoves the spoonful of cereal into his mouth and almost chokes when the banging becomes louder. He slams a fist into his chest a few times and coughs because he doesn't really want Cap'n Crunch in his lungs, and the banging continues.

"What the fuck," he mumbles to himself and stands up. Her truck is seriously acting up today, maybe it'd finally bit the dust. Which, _praise be, _meant that she would probably need a new vehicle, but at least he wouldn't have to put up with the pickup backfiring anymore. At least, _as soon as she stopped trying to start it and it quit dying on her almost immediately. _

Natsu stalks over to his front door and turns the lock before flinging it open. "Mrs. Schmooker, can you _please_—for the love of all things holy—" he pauses, and blinks at the sight before him.

His street is literally on fire. Flames are licking hungrily at the foundations of houses up and down Forest Avenue, his seemingly one of the only ones untouched. There are a few people running around screaming in terror, which is, y'know, considerably strange behavior. But most importantly, the banging slash weird thudding noise continues—only louder now—although Mrs. Schmooker's truck is sitting stationary in her drive, on fire.

He slowly turns his head in the direction of the noise, and as it turns out, it's coming from one of his front windows, the ones located behind the shrubs. Or, more specifically, the woman he thinks is his elderly neighbor lady slamming her head into the window. She's still dressed in her bath robe and slippers, her hair still in curlers, and Natsu considers talking to somebody about having her sent to an assisted living facility. He resists the urge to curse loudly, because she's a religious woman who always goes to church every Sunday morning (thankfully after nine) and always brings him cookies on Thursday evenings. He really likes those cookies.

"Mrs. Schmooker, _why _are you—hey! Stop that! You're drawing blood—and getting it all over my window!"

Natsu is about to rush over and pull her away when she suddenly turns around, and he takes a step back. It's her, alright, he can tell even with the blood running down her face. But she's different—her skin is still sagging from age, but now it's a dull gray color, and she's snarling at him. He sincerely hopes that it's breakfast sausage stuck in her dentures, but he knows it's not. She stares at him, one of her eyeballs barely hanging from a tendon, and he resist the urge to vomit.

Everything really connects when the screaming mailman runs by his house, only to be tackled by who he thinks is Mrs. Cooper, or what's left of her. She then proceeds to rip his intestines out and shove them in her gaping mouth. Natsu would be impressed with the move if they were playing football, but now all he feels a sudden bout of nausea coming on.

At the moment, Mrs. Schmooker decides to lunge for him, teeth snapping and dangling eye bobbing. He swears anyway, this time, even though he's still technically in the presence of his elderly neighbor. Sort of.

"Shit!"

He dodges and ducks back into his open door before slamming it shut and locking it. He also slides the deadbolt in place for good measure, and groans in agitation.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" he cries, and slams his forehead against the red painted wood, though mostly in irritation that no, he's not going over to Gajeel's later and there won't be any Modern Warfare marathon until five in the morning.

Natsu huffs and glowers at the undead Mrs. Schmooker, who has gone back to trying to break his window in with her head. She's smearing her icky blood all over it, and there are other features about her face he doesn't particularly wish to see anymore, so he closes the curtains.

Leave it to all the early risers to get the first brunt of the apocalypse. He shakes his head because really, who gets up and around early on Saturday mornings? Crazy people, that's who. Well, and Lucy, but she's always been weird.

But seriously, he's been preparing for this moment all his life, or at least since he was like, nine. Everyone thought he was just being ridiculous—which,_ ex_-_fucking_-_scuse_ you, he isn't one of those crazy gun separatists or anything okay—and now look at them. They were out panicking and getting eaten by the minute, while he was safe inside his home, which is full of supplies. He counts this as one of his first victories over humanity.

Natsu: 1.

Everyone else: 0.

Look who's laughing now.

Anyway, he's seen pretty much every zombie movie in existence, from the classics to Zombieland and The Walking Dead and everything in between, and he's played enough Call of Duty Zombies to know what he's up against. Well, sort of. He does have the basic facts though, and they are these:

They're not fast, they look disgusting and smell even worse, they don't just go for the brains, they stagger and sway worse than drunks on a Friday night, and he has to find his friends and family.

He's not sure what their bite does, how people turn, or how any of this got started in the first place, but as he loads his dad's shotgun and stuffs extra shells into his backpack—along with perishable and nonperishable food supplies, knives, and anything else useful he can get his hands on—he knows he's going to find out. One way or another.

The linen closet on the second story is stocked with aluminum baseball bats, an axe, and other various items useful for this type of venture, and he packs as much as he can without it being _too much. _You don't want to be weighed down by anything when you're running for your life from fleshing-craving mutations of former humans. What a stupid way to die.

Natsu also includes some extra clothes, because who knows how long this thing will last, and he may not be the most hygienic person ever, but wearing the same clothes for months is nasty. After everything seems to be ready to go, he opens the window to his second floor bedroom and steadies the rifle is his hands on the sill. Mrs. Schmooker has apparently given up on trying to use her head as a battering ram and is chasing the UPS guy down the street.

"Sorry Luetta," he says, before peering through the scope and pulling the trigger twice. She goes down in an instant, and smashes onto the pavement. The UPS guy actually manages to make it to his truck, and speeds away, hitting zombies out of the way like bowling pins.

Natsu clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth and closes the window. Slinging the rifle over his arm, along with at least two other guns belonging to his late father, he grabs his backpack and heads downstairs.

It's going to be a long Saturday.

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(_x_)

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Juvia lets out a cry of despair as her former handsome neighbor crashes through a patch of her meticulously planted begonias. He snaps to attention, hearing her cry, and her blood instantly runs cold. He lets out a strange gurgling sound and reaches toward her, feet dragging over the ground.

She lets out a shriek and drops the morning paper in favor of grabbing a nearby shovel. Michael comes closer, and she makes a face at his right arm and the exposed bone, and then at the hole in his chest. He makes grabby hands at her as he attempts to reach up through the white posts on her front porch to get to her ankles. She brings the end of the shovel down on his wrist, hand and fast, and it slices through the gray skin. The hand goes flying—and she promptly brings the metal down on his head.

"I didn't want to go out with you anyway," she mumbles and then cringes at the awful squishing sound.

Zombie Michael sways and collapses, and she grips the handle of the shovel tighter before backing up. Her street is mostly clear, with only a few stragglers still lingering around, but she doesn't know what to do.

"Why do all the worst things happen to me? Why can't I have just one normal day? That's all I ask, really. No zombies on a Saturday. Especially not a Saturday when I was supposed to study with _Gray_."

She hopes that he's okay, because you know, she's in love with him and all that. But he doesn't _know that apparently, _even though everyone else seems to, and she can't die without really making it clear to him first. Well, honestly she doesn't want to die _at all, _but definitely not by zombie. Then people would be right in saying that she's an airhead and a ditz and she's not about to let that happen.

Juvia blows some fringe out of her eyes and adjusts her flower crown—it's her favorite, the one with the small pink roses, because she has to look her best for Gray. She lifts her head a little higher and retreats back inside to grab a few things before leaving.

Her neighborhood might be quiet now, but it didn't mean that it would stay that way. Also, it isn't just Gray she's worried about, because all her friends are still (hopefully) out there too.

She pulls her meticulously curled cornflower hair up into a messy bun and smiles at her reflection in the mirror. Time to get slaying.

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(_x_)

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Gajeel bashes a zombie's head in with the biggest monkey wrench he could find as Gray torches an elderly man wearing a newsboy cap and one suspender. Their respective mornings had started off relatively normal, with both of them getting up around eight. Gajeel had gone out to work on his jeep before their video game all-nighter, and Gray had come over to help.

Everything had gone to shit about thirty minutes later, when a Girl Scout tried to bite Gray's fingers off, and things hadn't gotten any better.

"Fucking zombies, man," Gajeel intones as Gray swings his blow torch around and slams a welding helmet down over Undead Elderly Newsie.

Gray nods and drops the helmet, instead picking up a bat Gajeel had stored in his garage from his baseball years when he was younger. "All I wanted," he bites out, "was my damn coffee and to learn how to change my oil. I was supposed to study with Juvia later too."

Both zombies finally fall, _really _dead, this time, and they wipe the sweat off their foreheads. Gray's white t-shirt is stained with grease and other things he doesn't really wish to know about, and Gajeel has what is, quite possibly, brain matter in his hair.

Natsu was probably rejoicing, wherever he was, because he'd been prepping for this day like a girl prepares for prom since he was a kid. That's roughly eight years of planning, imaging worst case scenarios, and a hella ton of summer and weekend nights spent analyzing every zombie movie and franchise ever. Gajeel thinks that if his cousin was half as committed to his education as he is to preparing for the "inevitable dawn of the undead" that he'd be one of smartest people he knew.

It was not the case though, but surely if anyone could survive this, it'd be Natsu.

The moron was probably still sleeping though, to be honest, and either hadn't noticed the shift yet or wouldn't until the undead were already in his house.

"You thinking about Natsu?" Gray questions as he edges around the rotting Girl Scout's headless body and reaches for his jacket.

Gajeel gives a nod and brushes his hands off on his pants. "Yeah. We should probably find him—or anyone else we can, I guess. You said something 'bout Juvia earlier, right? Gotta swing by there and check on her."

Images of his oldest friend's body mangled and bloody make his stomach churn, and he shakes his head in an attempt to make them go away. Juvia was a tough girl, she'd be fine so long as she didn't do anything like putting herself straightway into danger. Not many people live on her street anyway, so it would probably be clear for the most part.

"We should head to Fairy Tail after that," Gray grunts, resting the bat on his shoulder. "I bet that's where everyone will be."

Gajeel steps over Undead Newsie's corpse and starts his Jeep. "Yeah."

Gray swings himself up into the cab and slams the passenger door shut. "Hey, what about Levy? Doesn't she go for a run on Saturday mornings?"

Gajeel puts the Jeep into gear faster than he ever has before.

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(_x_)

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Lucy thinks this must be the most insane thing that's ever happened to her. Maybe it's punishment because she was a terrible serial killer in her former life, or something. Although she can't really picture herself as a serial killer, or a criminal of any sort, at least until today.

She swings the ax around and cringes as the zombie's head goes flying. It lands on somebody's front porch, and she mentally apologizes even though they're probably already dead or one of _them. _She's watched movies with Natsu—seriously, he has some kind of obsession or something—but nothing could have prepared her for this. Things like this just don't _happen _in real life. The whole "Zombie Apocalypse" thing was just a stupid superstition of nerds and gullible people alike, and Natsu, who didn't really qualify as either. Gullible, maybe. Certifiably insane? Also maybe.

Then again, probably not, because here she is, hacking already dead people apart like some kind of demented version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Only she was slaying zombies, not vampires, but honestly she'd rather take her chances with the vampires. At least their brains had cognitive functions and they possessed some form of sense. Even Dracula.

But no, she's stuck with zombies. Which? _Sucky. _

In the beginning, she thought it was just people dressing up and being a general nuisance to those around them. _Come on you guys, _she'd called to a group of screaming teenagers as they'd run past her, _Halloween isn't two weeks away. Get a grip. _That lasted up until she'd realized what was actually happening. She'd been walking to Juvia's house until she witnessed a husband—only, certainly not anymore—trying to eat his wife. She's just so incredibly over her life at this point, it's unreal.

Thankfully she'd seen the ax sticking out of some guy's woodpile outside of his house, or else she'd have been dead forever ago. Even though she's probably only been out here four an hour or so. She's never stolen anything in her life before this, and she's really sorry but she also doesn't have a deathwish. No weapon plus hordes of zombies craving her flesh and brains equals certain disaster, she did the math.

Lucy cautiously glances around, but everything is silent. Except she thinks she hears screaming coming from a couple streets away. Not surprising, really, seeing as how it seems to be the end of the world as they know it and there are zombies staggering around trying to eat everyone who's not already dead.

_Her life. _

She checks the name on the street sign and is surprised to discover that she's not far from Fairy Tail. If she can just make it there, where all her friends are surely headed to, then she'll be alright. For a little while, at least.

The blonde hitches her axe higher on her shoulder and sets off, thinking about her best friend all the way. _He's fine, _she repeats in her head like a mantra, _he's practically been waiting for this from the moment he was born. He's fine, he's fine, he's fine. Everyone's fine. _

Well, not _everyone, _because she's seen a lot of bodies that _weren't _up and walking around searching for a meaty snack. Magnolia may be a wreck, but her friends are okay.

Surely.

_tbc._

**end notes: **will feature focus on natsu/lucy, gray/juvia, jellal/erza, gajeel/levy, romeo/wendy, and possible others.


	2. Chapter 2

**notes: **you guys aren't overly fond of zombie movies or stories either? we could be like, related or something. also, i watched fairy tail abridged (the parody) and _you guys, _it is gold. natsu's such an asshole but he's also so cool. lucy is portrayed as kind of a dumb blonde who doesn't really do anything though, but.  
><strong>dedication: <strong>to pizza, and _guardians of the galaxy, _my favorite marvel movie.

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(_a zombie memoir, wherein Romeo Conbolt concluded that being a paperboy is a terrible career choice,  
>and getting attacked by zombies is an occupational hazard, apparently.<em>)

.

**act ii**

this is do or die, _or _so i guess we're skipping breakfast and going straight  
><span>to the slaying 

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{_show them all you're not the ordinary type_}

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—

Levy pulls the pillow over her ears and groans, thinking maybe—just _maybe_—she shouldn't have pulled an all-nighter reading. In her defense, once she had started, she hadn't been able to stop. It was like the book had completely pulled her in, and she didn't reemerge until the back cover was shut, and she blearily noticed that the clock read 1:07 am.

Also, what the hell kind of way to is that to end a book? To just leave the main character to die like that—or not, she doesn't actually know because the last page was all fucking cryptic. Whatever, now she has to go out and buy the last book of the trilogy, figures.

She squints against the bright sunshine streaming through her window and yawns. Levy rolls over and rubs at her eyes wearily, still grumbling. The alarm clock—which she had conveniently forgotten to turn on—says it's half past eight. Well, so much for her morning run, then. Honestly, she's seriously tempted to just go back to sleep and forget everything she has to do today.

She somehow managers to roll out of bed, but that also entails bringing the mess of bedding down with her and crashing to the floor, apparently. It hurts like a bitch to make face-to-face contact with hardwood flooring, she now knows.

After a few slow, antagonizing minutes she peels herself off the floor and untangles herself from the bedspread extravaganza, tossing the blankets and sheets aside. She'll make her bed, really, just after breakfast and a mug of the strongest coffee ever brewed.

Levy plods down the stairs and makes a beeline for the kitchen. She prepares the coffee pot and turns the radio on before starting on breakfast. Small but nimble fingers turn the dial—she takes a moment even in her sleepy state to admire the mango-peach color of her nail polish—and the small device crackles to life. To be honest, that's about all it does. There's nothing _but _crackling and static and the occasional cut-in of someone screaming something she really can't make out.

It's odd, really unusual, but she isn't deterred. She listens to _Welcome to Night Vale_, she's experienced far stranger things than this. Besides, she does vaguely recall hearing about a new radio program airing on Saturday mornings—Magnolia Mystery Hour, or something like that. Levy just shrugs and turns the front burner on with a little 'click.'

She's in the middle of making eggs benedict and slathering toast with peach preserves when she first notices something is off. The radio is still doing its snap-crackle-incoherent screeching maybe messages-pop thing, but that doesn't really alarm her. What does, though, is that the morning paper is late. She knows that she's being fickle, okay, but seriously. She and the paperboy have a _schedule_—one that they've been following for like three _months_—and now this. Besides, she always reads the Saturday morning paper over breakfast on, well, Saturdays.

(She knows that she sounds like a mid-forties suburban dad, okay, but honestly she's seventeen and likes to stay well-informed, thank you very much.)

Levy rolls her eyes and huffs before taking her eggs off the burner and shutting it off. She picks up a piece of toast and shuffles toward the front door, her teddy bear slippers sliding across the floor. She fully intends to park herself on the front porch and wait for the paper.

At least, until she flings the door open and is met with the sight of what appears to be a scene out of a horror movie, complete with the undead FedEx guy chasing Mrs. Winters down the street.

Well.

That just—

That just explained so much.

She's about to slam the door shut again when she hears it—the whirring noise. It's constant, fast, and coming towards her at what is apparently, an impressive speed. Levy turns and—wonder of all wonders—there is the paperboy on his bike, pedaling towards her like a bat straight out of hell.

He screeches to a full halt in front of the walk leading toward her house while she gapes at him. It's only then that she realizes that this boy isn't the regular kid, but a different one.

"Sorry Miss," he checks the name on the paper, "McGarden. Jasper's sick with the flu or something—didn't let me know until six forty-five this _morning_—and so I had to take his route. That's why your paper is late."

In her peripheral vision, Levy sees the FedEx zombie finally catch her neighbor and bite into her. Then she recognizes the kid standing in front of her, and also realizes that he is still somehow miraculously unaware of the chaos going on around them.

He tosses the paper onto the brick walk in front of her and prepares to peddle away. "Sorry again. I have to go—"

"Romeo," she says very suddenly, hurrying down her front porch steps, arm outstretched, "come here."

He blinks. "Oh, hi Levy. What—"

"Romeo," she tries again, voice rising an octave, "what are you—_just_," Levy practically yanks him off his bike.

The fourteen-year-old shrieks as all the papers left from Jasper's route scatter across the pavement, but she's too preoccupied with dragging him away from the flash-eating zombies to care.

"Get inside if you want to live!"

She shouts at him as she pulls him through the front door and slams it shut just as a construction worker with his intestines dragging on the ground reaches Romeo's bike. Said boy gawks and starts to flail as she begins locking the door. "Holy _shit_," he swears, "what the crap. How did I miss the freaking _zombie apocalypse_?"

Levy slides the last lock into place and brushes a stray curl behind her ear. "I think you were too busy trying to get me my morning paper."

.

(_x_)

.

Erza Scarlet is busy baking strawberry crème crepes when the world as she knows it ends. The television program on in her living room abruptly switches from a show about the cutest animals in the world to a frantic reporter shouting words she can't really understand. She slides the last batch of crepes into the oven and brushes her hands off on the apron tied around her waist before slipping into the room.

The city behind him looks like something out of one of those dumb movies Natsu likes to watch, and she briefly wonders if this is one of them. Further inspection shows that it is not, in fact, a flick about the impending and '_oh shit it's here_' apocalypse, but that the world has been suddenly overrun by the living dead. Like, for real.

How utterly cliché.

What a way to start out your Saturday morning.

She stares at the tv with wide eyes as the reporter on front of her is eaten before her; the screen goes to the colorful error slide and screeching ensues. Erza's mind is racing, but it isn't really getting anywhere, when something slams into her front door. She jumps and nearly falls over the couch, but slowly makes her way over to see what the cause of the noise is.

Cautiously, she peers through the peephole.

It's a zombie, because what else could it have been?

The dead but undead thing makes a low groaning noise and throws itself at her door again, causing her to jump back. She has to get out of her—her home might be safe now, but not for long. Her friends are also probably in danger, or doing something stupid and putting themselves in harm's way, and she has to make sure that they're alright.

Erza unties her apron and hangs it on a hook. Grandpa Rob had never owned any guns, and she doesn't either, so she's going to have to improvise. Her gaze lands on the firepoker hanging innocently next to the fireplace, and her lips twitch. The banging on her door is getting louder, and it's likely the would-be intruder is throwing himself onto it harder.

Most of her street seems oddly clear though, but she knows that looks can be deceiving. She has to find a way out of here and locate her friends. Then they can try and make it somewhere safer.

The oven timer starts to go off, and she blinks.

But first, her crepes.

.

(_x_)

.

"Shoo! Get out of here! Shoo!"

Wendy swats at the preschoolers with her umbrella, squealing and trying to keep them as far away from her as possible. They've cornered her on the playground, and she has nowhere to go. She manages to whack a redheaded boy missing his whole left hand that's gotten particularly too close in the face with the umbrella. He stumbles backward, and his forehead splits open on impact, blood and other unidentifiable nasty-looking fluids splattering the surrounding area.

She shrieks and her body shudders subconsciously at the sight. Glancing behind her, she grabs onto the weird climbing structure unique to their park and scrambles up it. The assorted mix of undead preschoolers and school-age children are still trying to reach her, but they apparently can't climb the funky play sculpture.

Breathing a sigh of relief, and she leans back a little. The thing is like seven feet tall—technically it's probably a safety hazard, but hey—so she's safe. For now, anyway. Dying by a gaggle of zombie children hadn't really been on her agenda for today, and she plans to keep it that way.

She can't say so much for being attacked by them, though.

Wendy peers down at the moaning and gurgling small mass of infected kids and whimpers. She knows that she has to take them out at some point—or else _she'll _be the one down and out for the count—but she's not quite ready yet. They're probably not even that much younger than she is, and they were some loving parents' babies at a time.

_Were_ being the key word in that sentence, because now they're just a bunch of mindless zombies trying to eat her.

What a time to be alive, truly.

She sniffles and pulls her legs up to her chest, careful to keep her balance lest he fall to her certain death by the undead. The bloodied umbrella is hooked onto her right arm. It's black—not really hers, but some poor unfortunate soul's who'd been attacked and hadn't made it out alive—and she thinks that it's suiting.

But honestly, _zombies_, of all things? This is beyond ridiculous—it's almost entirely unbelievable. Except, you know, _not. _The bodies littering the streets and the graying children snapping their jaws beneath her are proof of that. She buries her tear-stained face in her skirt and tries to not cry. It's not very easy.

Five minutes, she tells herself. She's giving herself five minutes to get it together and then she's going to climb down and take care of the zombies trying to eat her. Kids or no kids. It's not like they're actually _human _anymore, and they probably can't even really sense pain. That is what she tries to convince herself, anyway.

At three minutes and forty-two seconds, the sound of a struggle and other weird noises makes her look up, and ultimately, down. All the zombie schoolchildren have been dispatched, and standing in the midst of them is a teenager with wild blue hair. He glances up at her—he has a _facial tattoo, is he some kind of delinquent?_—and smiles. He offers a hand, the one not holding the bloody crowbar.

"Hey," he says, "why don't you come down from there?"

She blinks, but complies.

Wendy climbs down from her perch, trying very hard not to look at the decapitated bodes around them, and he helps her over the head of the boy who she'd previously hit with the umbrella.

"I'm Jellal," he introduces, and she nods, bottom lip trembling. "How about we get out of here?"

She slips her hand into his, and tries to smile.

It comes off as more of a twitching grimace.

.

(_x_)

.

Lucy peeks around the side of the house, towards the forest. Everything seems clear, with the few stragglers still around spread out on the ground behind her, missing their heads. She's always been kind of squeamish around blood and killing and well, _missing extremities_, at least until she became friends with Natsu. She cleaned him up after fights, and so that kind of toughened her up some. Because Natsu got himself into a lot of fights.

But.

Decapitating former people who've been trying to make a meal of you is completely different.

She blanches, and slips from her concealed spot. It's about a fifteen minute powerwalk to Fairy Tail, yet, and something isn't right. She can already feel it settling into her bones, can hear Natsu's dumb voice in her head mumbling something about things being 'too easy' and 'fucking quiet.' Of course, at the time she'd been seated next to him while he and Gray were playing video games. Totally different situation, but still the same feeling.

It's a gut-feeling, and Lucy knows that all the television shows and movies always advise to trust gut-feelings.

Still, this is the fastest way to her destination, and the closest. She prays that Levy and Wendy are okay, because her best friend always goes on runs in the early morning hours on weekends, and the younger girl likes taking walks to the bakery downtown for their blueberry muffins. It's Magnolia—the perfectly safe town named after pretty flowering trees—and nothing bad ever happens in Magnolia. Except, apparently, the zombie apocalypse.

But that's just this one-time thing.

So anyway, back to the problem at hand. She's hurrying along, and everything is going great, which is also very bad. Especially when the rumbling starts. Lucy pauses, head titled upward and ax hanging loosely at her side, and swallows. It's coming closer, steadily and surely, and it sounds like—like—

It sounds like footsteps?

"What the hell?!"

Something peeks over the hill, and that's when the blonde starts to panic.

Because _zombies, a whole horde of zombies is coming straight for her like a freight train of inevitable death. _There are undead walkers of all shapes and sizes, ethnicity and occupations, and they are not slowing down. Her breathing promptly stops, and she goes very, very still.

Her eyes slowly slide from her sure doom to the line of trees bordering the forest, and she makes a split-second decision that probably saves her life. Lucy bolts for the treeline, and, finding a huge oak and deeming it acceptable, she scrambles to climb up it in time.

She's never been an expert at climbing trees—that's more of Natsu's domain—but she manages. She's grabbing branches and hauling herself up like someone grabbing items on Black Friday, mumbling unintelligible things under her breath. A scream rips from her mouth as a hand grabs her brand new pink Chucks and she promptly kicks the undead soccer mom in the face and tears her foot free.

By the time she's some nine or so feet high, clinging to the tree branches like they're her life line (because they kind of _are_) the massive horde of zombies has reached her. They drag themselves over the spot she'd been standing in only a minute or so before, and she shudders violently.

Well, she thinks, now what?

_tbc._

**end notes: **i'm so tired and also hungry but mostly tired. review?


End file.
